look too long into the abyss, the abyss will look back into you 

Annihilation (2018)
Directed by Alex Garland 
Gore Capitalism Series #9

The axiom that most commuter cyclists live by when careening through the narrow bike lanes of Chicago is that you must accept that you’re invisible. No matter how vibrant or insulting to good taste your attire may be or how much lumen your blinking strobe bike light produces, people just don’t pay attention. My bump card is full, dating back to being a pre-teen, where I’ve been doored, lacerated with a blood trail dripping on gravel from wounds and scrapes on my knees and arms, knocked unconscious, and most recently, I broke my foot. It shakes me up each time and keeps me away from my bike for a day or two before I get back to it. Close calls have elevated my blood pressure and all I want to do when narrowly avoiding certain injury and possible death is yell: I’m right here! I exist! 

The sentiment serves as a microcosm for my day-in-day-out routine, where I often struggle to find my place in the world. There are moments of recognition, but they come sparingly. And disappointingly, because of whatever chemical defect that resides in my brain, the whole experience is ephemeral and short-lived. Instead, I mull on the negative, leaving me downtrodden and frustrated. The frustration, in particular, stems from this dual sense of both wanting to be seen & be invisible. As if the version that people see leaves me wanting to retreat, while the one that I want people to see is disregarded. It’s a crisis of identity and it’s what I saw very vividly in Alex Garland’s Annihilation. 

It’s a messy film. While I was generally positive of the film back in 2018, I didn’t have a particularly strong compulsion to return to it, despite finding it superior to Garland’s much-lauded Ex Machina. But time has been kind to Annihilation, with many of its themes of ennui and fears of an impending environmental disaster feeling more prescient in a world coming to terms with COVID. It centers on Lena (Natalie Portman), a biology professor and army veteran, reckoning with the loss of her husband, Kane (Oscar Isaac). The opening passages instill a sense of dread while also being painfully on-the-nose with dictating some of the clumsy molecular science the film ascribes to. But as Lena begins painting the bedroom that she once shared with her husband, only to see him at the doorway, Garland’s evocative imagery permits his inelegant writing some flexibility. We soon discover that the Kane that stands before Lena is not exactly the same man that she knew before, and as he’s overtaken by a possible seizure or stroke, the two are promptly isolated by their government. 

We learn about “The Shimmer”. As it were, it’s an enclave of the world wherein the genetic makeup of those within its slowly expanding dome are prismed, leaving human beings that inhabit the space to become one with nature. Or something like that. A lot of the science of the film feels a bit half-baked and only seems to get marginalized when we observe Lena and a coterie of like-minded, grief-stricken female scientists begin pelting a giant hybrid alligator with their machine guns. 

But Annihilation sings when it contemplates the cancerous tenacity of regret. Most of this is observed through Lena, and while the supporting characters that make up her team are thinly drawn, they too are largely defined by their despair. Whether it’s Dr. Ventress (Jennifer Jason Leigh) and her cancer diagnosis, Dr. Jose Radek (Tessa Thompson) and her self-mutilation, or Dr. Cass Sheppard (Tuva Novotny) and losing a daughter, these women exist in what Sayak Valencia refers to as a “feedback loop of negativity.”. Their acceptance of a suicide mission lends itself to embrace this negativity, resigning oneself to accept a fate where that regret takes their lives. It has me considering Valencia’s suggestion that “oppressed subjects begin to question the coherence and infallibility of the order imposed upon them.” These characters, particularly Lena, bear the weight of regret so as to wipe away their present. They are not seen. They don’t exist beyond the black hole that is their despondency, oppressed by inherited systems of monogamy, capitalism, and fate. But the glimmer of hope this film offers, when forced to confront your own self-destructive tendencies, is the kind of thing that makes watching films, and frankly life, worth living for. Annihilation is vague and leaves holes in its narrative for you to fill in. The result made me feel seen. It’s not what I always want in cinema or even in my life, but it’s definitely something I needed at this moment.